This morning on one of the morning shows, I heard people talking about ways they deterred sales people who came by unsolicited. Some of things seemed to be a bit snowflakey from what I can recall. If a salesperson or other solicitor rings my doorbell, I will kindly turn them away - I do not need a new vacuum (have 1 already), hear your political speech (not a political person here), or you trying to tell me about your religion (happy with my choice of Deity and faith).

I keep a hand-and-a-half sword near the front door. Oddly enough, people are strangely reluctant to peeve a person who has a large and lethal-looking sword within arm's reach.

A big 'ol roll of the eyes to the SS acquaintance who decided that the best response to a minor disagreement was to cut me off and un-friend me on FaceBook.... who threw a tantrum that I didn't notice the un-friending until it was pointed out to me... and then threw another tantrum when my response to the news of the un-friending was "I really don't care".

The cut direct. Un-friending. These do not mean what I think that you think they mean....

And this is a grown woman in her late 30s with two kids by the way... not a middle school tween, behavior notwithstanding.

I had my FB account hacked, and it sent out emails supporting a political position I definitely do not support. Friends who knew me well were amused by this, and posted notes joking about the change in my politics. Another friend, who DOES support that position, jumped on one of those posters, criticizing her politics. I posted a note saying that it was just a joke about my politics, and that surely Another Friend would have been struck by the incongruity of me espousing that position, since upon many, many occasions we had discussed politics and didn't she think it was amusing to imagine me making such a 180 turn?Apparently it wasn't amusing to her, because she unfriended me. I am not distraught.

Car pool just b**d's SS - they multiply by 10 in the rain. This morning and this afternoon drivers decided to ignore the giant "exit only" signs and yellow arrows pointing "out" from the driveway to the street and make illegal turns from the street into the parking lot using the exit lanes. Horns honking this morning were rewarded with blushes and sheepish grins ( happened right in front of me). The one this afternoon almost got rear ended by the person behind her on the street and I was rewarded by "the finger" since i honked as I was pulling out as she pulled in and almost hit me

A big 'ol roll of the eyes to the SS acquaintance who decided that the best response to a minor disagreement was to cut me off and un-friend me on FaceBook.... who threw a tantrum that I didn't notice the un-friending until it was pointed out to me... and then threw another tantrum when my response to the news of the un-friending was "I really don't care".

The cut direct. Un-friending. These do not mean what I think that you think they mean....

And this is a grown woman in her late 30s with two kids by the way... not a middle school tween, behavior notwithstanding.

I had my FB account hacked, and it sent out emails supporting a political position I definitely do not support. Friends who knew me well were amused by this, and posted notes joking about the change in my politics. Another friend, who DOES support that position, jumped on one of those posters, criticizing her politics. I posted a note saying that it was just a joke about my politics, and that surely Another Friend would have been struck by the incongruity of me espousing that position, since upon many, many occasions we had discussed politics and didn't she think it was amusing to imagine me making such a 180 turn?Apparently it wasn't amusing to her, because she unfriended me. I am not distraught.

My grandmother was part of the donkey party her whole life, and my uncle who gave her eulogy joked that he knew she was slipping when he went through her register and saw she'd donated money to the elephant party because she would have never done that before the Alzheimer's set in.

Even the family members who were part of the elephant party had to chuckle at that one simply because it really was so out of character for Grandma.

Logged

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. Be cheerful, strive to be happy. -Desiderata

Man Flies Into Rage After Being Asked to Pay For Third Tub of Ranch Dip

Edited for copyright laws.

So many places charge for extra condiments these days anyways. I remember when I worked at the Golden Arches that the only condiments we charged extra for was the salad dressing or cheese on the sandwich (extra slice or add on to one that came with cheese). I see signs up for how much will be given to you before they charge for extras. I would hate to deal with people if I worked at the Golden Arches again that would go ballistic over things like extra ketchup or dipping sauces!

We've had several provincial parks closed here because of budget cuts. You are no longer allowed to drive in; there are no rangers; there are no programs being run; the washroom facilities are locked. But you are still allowed to walk in and use the trails, beaches, whatever natural amentities are available, basically at your own risk. And you no longer have to pay for it!

So a visitor to the area, I could understand. But not a local.

Logged

After cleaning out my Dad's house, I have this advice: If you haven't used it in a year, throw it out!!!!.

We've had several provincial parks closed here because of budget cuts. You are no longer allowed to drive in; there are no rangers; there are no programs being run; the washroom facilities are locked. But you are still allowed to walk in and use the trails, beaches, whatever natural amentities are available, basically at your own risk. And you no longer have to pay for it!

So a visitor to the area, I could understand. But not a local.

Because of the federal government shutdown in the US, all national parks are closed. This has been widely discussed in every form of news media - tv, radio, online, print - so it's odd that she hadn't at least heard of it.

"Because of the federal government shutdown in the US, all national parks are closed. This has been widely discussed in every form of news media - tv, radio, online, print - so it's odd that she hadn't at least heard of it."

The teacher's comments indicated that she didn't think that "closed" applied to the area at large, only to the facilities that would be run by employees, and that's not a completely unreasonable belief. To be honest, a lot of the signage I saw pertaining to the park closures didn't explicitly say that the area was closed (a barricade saying "Closed" but not "Do not enter" is a badly marked barricade in my opinion, especially when it's not laid across the entire entrance road). So it's still possible to know about the closures and not think that it meant that you weren't allowed past the gate. Her SSitude sprang forth when she commented that she was going to look up the citation to see if it was real, because the citation's existence should indicate that she broke a real law.

A big 'ol roll of the eyes to the SS acquaintance who decided that the best response to a minor disagreement was to cut me off and un-friend me on FaceBook.... who threw a tantrum that I didn't notice the un-friending until it was pointed out to me... and then threw another tantrum when my response to the news of the un-friending was "I really don't care".

The cut direct. Un-friending. These do not mean what I think that you think they mean....

And this is a grown woman in her late 30s with two kids by the way... not a middle school tween, behavior notwithstanding.

I had my FB account hacked, and it sent out emails supporting a political position I definitely do not support. Friends who knew me well were amused by this, and posted notes joking about the change in my politics. Another friend, who DOES support that position, jumped on one of those posters, criticizing her politics. I posted a note saying that it was just a joke about my politics, and that surely Another Friend would have been struck by the incongruity of me espousing that position, since upon many, many occasions we had discussed politics and didn't she think it was amusing to imagine me making such a 180 turn?Apparently it wasn't amusing to her, because she unfriended me. I am not distraught.

My grandmother was part of the donkey party her whole life, and my uncle who gave her eulogy joked that he knew she was slipping when he went through her register and saw she'd donated money to the elephant party because she would have never done that before the Alzheimer's set in.

Even the family members who were part of the elephant party had to chuckle at that one simply because it really was so out of character for Grandma.

A friend cut me (and two other friends) off because she did not like our politics. In order to prove that we were wrong, she sent us a very snide email she had received (filled, I might add with half truths about our candidate and turning her candidate into a saint). There were fifteen points criticizing my party and celebrities connected with it. Almost all of it was taken out of context.

So one friend and I decided to answer the fifteen points with actual research and facts.

And that was the last we ever heard from her. All emails went unanswered.

The really wild thing here...the two people she cut off with me? They belong to HER party. It was just that their party candidate that year was, well, less than stellar.

<snip>This weekend, Sanders was hosting some international students from Japan. She wanted them to see the park, so she did a quick check on the National Park Service website to see if she could go.

“I didn’t see anything saying I could not,” she said. “When I got to the park, there was a partial barricade. But there was a full lane open.”

There was a sign on the barricade, but Sanders was confused by the use of the word ‘facility.’

“I thought that meant the gift shop and the restrooms and the ranger station, I didn’t think it meant the waterfall and the path. It didn’t occur to me that I was breaking the law, at all.”

But within minutes, a park ranger showed up and wrote her and several other visitors $125 tickets for ‘violation of closure.’

“I actually wanted to look it up to see if it’s a real law I violated, or if it’s just to communicate a point,” Sanders said.

Really?

I would give her the benefit of the doubt. The last I heard there were several states and local governments who were planning to re-open the national parks using their own funds. The lack of tourism was killing their economy, so it was better for them to temporarily provide the funds than to keep them closed. It looks like Utah has re-opened some of their parks, and both the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty are open, for a few examples. If I were the teacher, I would have assumed the local or state government had partially re-opened the park (e.g., the trails, but perhaps not the shops).

I can see me doing the same thing she did. (Actually, now that I think about it, I did do something similar last May. I was planning on going down a road that was scheduled to close 6:30 am due to a local festival. Festival directions explicately gave this road as a potential route, with the note that it would close at 6:30am. I arrived at 5:30 am to find a barricade blocking one lane, but not the other. I paused, saw a cop parked on the road, and decided I would pull up to her and make sure I was ok to drive on it. I thought the barricade was there in preparation for the 6:30 close. Before I could even get a word out, she started yelling at me. Oops!)

We've had several provincial parks closed here because of budget cuts. You are no longer allowed to drive in; there are no rangers; there are no programs being run; the washroom facilities are locked. But you are still allowed to walk in and use the trails, beaches, whatever natural amentities are available, basically at your own risk. And you no longer have to pay for it!

So a visitor to the area, I could understand. But not a local.

Because of the federal government shutdown in the US, all national parks are closed. This has been widely discussed in every form of news media - tv, radio, online, print - so it's odd that she hadn't at least heard of it.

Except that now the states are being allowed to eat the costs to reopen some of them.

Logged

What part of v_e = \sqrt{\frac{2GM}{r}} don't you understand? It's only rocket science!

"The problem with re-examining your brilliant ideas is that more often than not, you discover they are the intellectual equivalent of saying, 'Hold my beer and watch this!'" - Cindy Couture

<snip>This weekend, Sanders was hosting some international students from Japan. She wanted them to see the park, so she did a quick check on the National Park Service website to see if she could go.

“I didn’t see anything saying I could not,” she said. “When I got to the park, there was a partial barricade. But there was a full lane open.”

There was a sign on the barricade, but Sanders was confused by the use of the word ‘facility.’

“I thought that meant the gift shop and the restrooms and the ranger station, I didn’t think it meant the waterfall and the path. It didn’t occur to me that I was breaking the law, at all.”

But within minutes, a park ranger showed up and wrote her and several other visitors $125 tickets for ‘violation of closure.’

“I actually wanted to look it up to see if it’s a real law I violated, or if it’s just to communicate a point,” Sanders said.

Really?

I would give her the benefit of the doubt. The last I heard there were several states and local governments who were planning to re-open the national parks using their own funds. The lack of tourism was killing their economy, so it was better for them to temporarily provide the funds than to keep them closed. It looks like Utah has re-opened some of their parks, and both the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty are open, for a few examples. If I were the teacher, I would have assumed the local or state government had partially re-opened the park (e.g., the trails, but perhaps not the shops).

I can see me doing the same thing she did. (Actually, now that I think about it, I did do something similar last May. I was planning on going down a road that was scheduled to close 6:30 am due to a local festival. Festival directions explicately gave this road as a potential route, with the note that it would close at 6:30am. I arrived at 5:30 am to find a barricade blocking one lane, but not the other. I paused, saw a cop parked on the road, and decided I would pull up to her and make sure I was ok to drive on it. I thought the barricade was there in preparation for the 6:30 close. Before I could even get a word out, she started yelling at me. Oops!)

So the park is closed and no one is being paid to staff it, but a ranger shows up in just a couple of minutes?

She was totally an SS who decided that because the website didn't specifically say "Olympic National Park is closed because of the government shutdown", that it wasn't actually closed and she could go if she wanted to. Her exact words were “I didn’t see anything saying I could not,”

If she actually did go to the park website then she would have been redirected to the NPS shutdown notice page. The very first sentence is "Because of the federal government shutdown, national parks are closed" Further down the page, they request that everyone honor the park closures until the shutdown is over.

On that page there is also a list of specific national parks that have been opened due to states offering to cover operating costs. So far only Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New York, North Carolina/Tennessee are the states that are covering the costs for some parks to open. The shutdown notice page is being updated daily with the list of parks that states are opening.

At many of the national parks there are rangers on duty, but the rangers who are responsible for customer facing and non essential duties have been furloughed. So the roads need to be kept partially open so staff can enter and exit.